Indian bureaucracy is worst in Asia: Study
Singapores civil servants are the most efficient among their Asian peers, a business survey of 12 economies released on Wednesday showed, but they tend to clam up unhelpfully when things go wrong.
Indias suffocating bureaucracy has been ranked the least efficient by the survey, which said working with the countrys civil servants was a slow and painful process.
They are a power centre in their own right at both the national and state levels, and are extremely resistant to reform that affects them or the way they go about their duties, the report said.
The island-state was ranked first for a third time in a poll of 1,274 expatriates working in 12 north and south Asian nations who were asked to rate the efficiency of bureaucrats in those countries. During normal times, when the system is not stress-tested , it operates very well, the Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy said in a 12-page report on Singapores bureaucracy.
However, during difficult timesor when mistakes are made that reflect badly on the systemthere is a tendency among bureaucrats to circle the wagons in ways that lack transparency and make accountability difficult, the report added.
Thailand, despite four years of on-off street protests and a year of dysfunctional government, was ranked third, after Hong Kong.
Bottom of the heap
Ranking of civil servants, from most efficient to least
1 SINGAPORE
2 HONG KONG
3 THAILAND
4 SOUTH KOREA
5 JAPAN
6 MALAYSIA
7 TAIWAN
8 VIETNAM
9 CHINA
10 PHILIPPINES
11 INDONESIA
12 INDIA